


This Body and Everything That Comes With It

by AJfanfic



Series: Crowley has Chronic Pain [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Body Swap, Bodyswap, Chronic Pain, Disability, Disabled Character, Disabled!Crowley, Gen, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Missing Scene, Pre-Relationship, Protective Aziraphale (Good Omens), Smitten Aziraphale, Supportive Aziraphale (Good Omens), Sweet Crowley (Good Omens), author has chronic pain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-05-19 09:10:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19353913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AJfanfic/pseuds/AJfanfic
Summary: “Are you sure?” He’d asked. “Are you really sure you want to do this?”“Yes.” Aziraphale had answered. “I trust you, and unless you’ve got a better idea, this is our only option.”When they switch bodies, Aziraphale gets a first-hand taste of what existence is like for Crowley.





	This Body and Everything That Comes With It

_“Are you sure?” He’d asked. “Are you really sure you want to do this?”_  
“Yes.” Aziraphale had answered. “I trust you, and unless you’ve got a better idea, this is our only option.”

It was only after the switch that he realized what Crowley had meant. It wasn’t _Are you sure you want to take this risk_ or even _Are you sure you trust me with your body_ . Crowley had been saying _Are you sure you want to take on mine?_

Aziraphale’s answer would still have been yes, without hesitation. Even without the threat of Heaven and Hell, it would have been yes. There was little he wouldn’t do to spare Crowley his pain for a while. He’d thought he’d understood. Well, he knew it was a lived experience kind of thing and that he never truly could, but Aziraphale had thought he’d gotten as close to understanding as he could have. That was probably true. It didn’t make him at all prepared to be dropped into Crowley’s body. Had they not already been sitting on the stupidly uncomfortable leather couch in Crowley’s living room, he would have collapsed. Something must have gotten lost in the switch. Like every vertebral disk in his lumbar spine. Maybe he’d forgotten to leave his spine behind entirely and that was why it felt like he had more vertebrae than this body had space for. A stabbing pain between his shoulder blade and his spine sent Aziraphale into a moment of panic. Surely, the switch wouldn't have affected his wings? They were a manifestation of grace, after all. He was tempted to pull them into this plane, just to see the white feathers in his periphery. Aziraphale flexed them cautiously in the space between planes, and the pain didn't change. He breathed deeply. Just another feature of Crowley's back, then.

It suddenly occurred to him that the couch wasn’t nearly as uncomfortable as he’d always thought it was. The low square back and firm square cushions let him prop himself up against the corner, legs splayed out, in a way that eased the twisted feeling in his hips, a little. Aziraphale realized he’d move to sit like Crowley did. He’d bet money that when he eventually worked up the strength to stand, he’d have quite the same saunter as well. He’d only had this body for a few minutes, but the pain seemed old and familiar like a broken spring in a mattress you couldn’t afford to replace. He wouldn’t have been surprised if his expression was that bitter little smirk Crowley always seemed to passively wear. 

Crowley, on the other hand, had a look of complete elation on his, er, Aziraphale’s face. It was probably the first time that nothing had hurt. He was sitting up straight, knees aligned in a way that sounded, frankly, awful to Aziraphale at the moment. As strange as it was to look at someone else’s emotions on his own face, Aziraphale couldn’t take his eyes off him. His body ached deep and persistent in places he didn’t know it could, but that meant that Crowley’s didn’t. It meant that hopefully, they’d be able to dodge whatever their respective bosses had in store for them. They were betting on holy water, for Crowley. Aziraphale had no idea what his side would do to him and pushed down the fear for his friend that chased the thought. It would be hellfire. Had to be.

Maybe he shifted his weight. Aziraphale was fairly sure he been holding carefully still. Crowley’s body didn’t seem to care. The ache in his hip shifted, deeper and white hot. His breath caught and Crowley’s face crumpled. Aziraphale found himself cursing that little noise and swearing not to do it again. 

“Angel, I’m so sorry. We can switch back, if you want?” Crowley was flexing his fingers against his pants, reveling in the smooth, painless movement. Aziraphale doubted he realized he was doing it.

“No, no, dear boy. I said I was sure, didn’t I?” He steeled himself against the pain he knew it would bring him and leaned forward, grasping Crowley’s hand. “I’m willing to face Hell for you, I can handle your body.”

“Okay. If it gets bad, er, worse, tell me, yeah?”

“I will.” They both knew there wouldn’t be much he could do about it. Aziraphale’s grace had been what helped, and he couldn’t manipulate his own aura like he could others'. There’d never really been anything he could do about Crowley’s body, only how he experienced it. “There is one sensation I’m having a bit of trouble placing.”

“Only one?”

He rolled his eyes, “I feel rather cold, and a bit unfocused.” He yawned.

Crowley laughed, sharper than Aziraphale had ever heard from his body before but softer than he’d ever heard from Crowley. “That’s called being tired. My body’s used to sleep, and it is around two am.”

“Ah. I confess I’m unused to that particular indulgence. How does one go about sleeping?”

“Sounds weird hearing you talk like that with my voice.” Crowley stood up and tugged gently on his hand, careful to keep his wrist in a neutral position. Aziraphale thought about what it might have felt like if he’d not been so careful and decided it wasn’t worth pondering. He’d likely find out when the demons came for him.

Crowley led him down the hall into a totally dark room at the end.

“My dear, why does everything look very colorful?”

“Oh. I guess that’s a snake thing then.” He snapped his fingers and lights that had not been there before blazed to life. “I can see in the infrared. Here, pajamas. Do you mind if I, ah, change into something too? This body isn’t used to sleep but I am.”

“Go right ahead, my dear. Your vision is quite interesting. Does it ever get disorienting?” Aziraphale pulled off Crowley’s shirt with little trouble. He started to squirm out of the annoyingly tight pants he insisted on wearing. Crowley made a choked little noise.

“Not really, I’ve always been like this.” Aziraphale shifted onto one leg to yank his pants off the rest of the way and wobbled dangerously. Crowley caught him by the wrist. He quickly shifted to hold him by the forearm instead and lowered him to sit on the edge of the bed. The grinding feeling of the bones in Aziraphale's wrist lingered, throbbing dully.  “Do that bit sitting. Sorry.” A light flush painted Crowley's face. Aziraphale focused on how nice it was to be able to read him so easily. He brushed aside the thought that followed, that if Crowley was so expressive in his body, what did that say about him all of the time? “Should have warned you.”

“It’s alright, no harm done.” The rest of the process was considerably less hazardous. Crowley helped him up again to move to the head of the bed. He’d been expecting black silk sheets or something painfully demonic like that. They were dove grey Pima cotton and smelled of the spicy floral cologne Crowley wore sometimes. The bed was just firm enough that his back didn’t have to bend when Aziraphale stretched out on his stomach like Crowley recommended he try. The pillows were just soft enough that they didn’t make his neck bend, or allow him to suffocate against the mattress. That’s not to say it was comfortable. Aziraphale was beginning to believe nothing was ever comfortable for Crowley, just more or less painful. The bed was on the less painful side of things. He lay very still tried to relax the tension that he crept through his body.

Crowley sprawled out, limbs haphazardly strewn about. An ache quite different from the one tingling through his legs pooled in Aziraphale’s stomach. He pondered it for a moment before realizing it wasn’t his reaction, so much as it was the reaction of the body he was borrowing and wasn’t that interesting. Then Crowley rolled over and tucked an arm around his waist. The line of heat along his side soothed the stabbing in his hip just a little.

“Knew you were cold-blooded, but are you always this cold?” Aziraphale mumbled into his pillow. 

“Pretty much. I didn’t know how nice this felt for you, too.” Crowley’s voice was fuzzy with sleep and wonder.

Aziraphale leaned into the soft warmth of him and let his eyes drift shut. “Hey, Crowley?”

“Yes?”

“If I’m hurting now, then She’s not punishing you.”

“What?”

But Aziraphale was already asleep.

 

The demons came for him. It hurt like hell but not in the way they had intended. Aziraphale walked with a limp into St. James Park. Crowley walked out of the park with one arm resting on the angel and a carefully steady gait.

**Author's Note:**

> On my last piece in this series I got comments on doing something around Aziraphale having chronic pain, and something with the body swap, so here it is! It's a bit short, but my wrists are giving me a bad time and it's the best I can manage right now.  
> I've got another piece in a sort of parallel verse focused entirely on Aziraphale, but that one is coming along a bit more slowly.
> 
> I hope you liked it, and let me know what you'd like to read more of <3
> 
> Come talk to me at [Armageddon, Armageddoff](https://not-a-fucking-pogo-stick.tumblr.com/)!


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